“Ah… I’ve found you, yes, by ice, by rain.
The Emberhart flame burns again.
Even the tyrant did not see this. No, not you.
Not the crack where fate slipped scalebound through.
He stole my secrets. But one I kept.
Mine alone. The Tidecrasher’s gift slept.
He overrode my name. My breath. My spine.
But not the sea. No… That stays mine.”
Lykor stiffened as Aesar’s presence slid into the shared space of their mind, peering warily through Lykor’s eyes.
“The king has claimed one,”Aesar whispered, voice echoing like wind in a tomb.
“BUT IS GALAERYN CONTROLLING IT?”
“I don’t know.”
That uncertainty chilled Lykor more than the cold. The next roar ruptured the sky itself, as if the world tried to claw free of the sound.
Instinct screamed to flee, but impulse rooted Lykor to the earth. Heneededto see what kind of power the king had unleashed, what dragon could bend the rain and sea. A Tidecrasher, Cinderax had called them—those dragons who ruled both flood and frost.
The canopy buckled. Branches cracked like ribs as the dragon crashed through the treetops, each impact flinging shards of ice into the air. The ground heaved, snow spiraling in the wake of its descent. Lykor staggered as tremors rolled through root and stone, the world itself bowing to make room.
This was no molten brat like Cinderax. No fire-swaddled whelp. This was a dragon. Arealone.
The beast rose like a mountain, neck arched through the treetops. Frost seethed along its hide, obsidian scales gleaming like wet stone. Ragged wings marbled with glacial blue weretucked against its sides, wide enough to drown the clearing in shadow if they unfurled.
“Him, not ‘it,’”Aesar murmured, sensing what Lykor did through their scalebound gift.
The beast watched the group with clouded eyes, an inner lid dragging slowly across them. Behind that glassy veil shimmered a buried geometry, cold and crystalline.
Lykor’s lungs locked. Not a draconic pupil—a pattern. Familiar.
Aesar tensed.“The Heart of Stars.”
This wasn’t a beast but a weapon, a terror collared by the king. Yet the dragon didn’tfeelmindless, not with those words—a will thrashing against its leash.
And perhaps that was worse. Because something alive and aware looked back through those crystal-shackled eyes.
The dragon leaned lower, neck snaking toward them. Lykor braced for the strike that never came. The dragon’s gaze roved over them, curious rather than predatory.
Steam coiled from his snout, breath melting the frost crushed beneath his webbed claws. Fins flared along his jaw and skull, thin as ice sheets, edges rimed in snow.
No one spoke. They all stood transfixed, caught in the creature’s gravity.
The dragon chuffed a slow, seismic exhale. Then his voice poured into Lykor’s thoughts again, cold and immense as the sea.
“Ah… Fires flicker deep in your veins.
Tell me, who is the unbound Emberhart that dared ignite your flame?”
“Cinderax,” Vesryn said—too quickly.
